"Off Book"

[Jaemi Greysnow]

I suppose it might be a little truculent of me to bring it up now, after a relatively good season (some people are lauding it as the best season yet!? Suffice it to say, I do not agree with that), it was very satisfying in places. But I have to say, isn't annoying and kind of disrespectful (unintentionally I'm sure) to GRRM that a number of the actors and even producers are calling this season "off book", how the don't have "the source material to work from", when a sizable portion is unmistakably adapted from A  Feast For Crows! Just 'cause they reached the end of A Dance With Dragons with Jon & Dany, they're acting like they're making it all up based on GRRM's instructions and their own (less good) ideas, when it's surely at 60% of the season was storylines from AFFC they circled back around for. Particularly annoying with Nikolaj Coster-Waldau saying in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter "[the main difference in approaching the story and character] this season is that first of all we're off completely off book" or words to that effect... Errr, Riverrun, The Blackfish, Edmure, the baby being threatened to be slung into Riverrun..... AFFC!

I usually defend the show against book purists tooth & nail, but hot daaeyum I'm find this annoying! Anyone else?

My humblest apologies for ranting anyhooo...

Thanks

Jaemi xxx

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

2 hours ago, Jaemi Grey-Snow said:

I suppose it might be a little truculent of me to bring it up now, after a relatively good season (some people are lauding it as the best season yet!? Suffice it to say, I do not agree with that), it was very satisfying in places. But I have to say, isn't annoying and kind of disrespectful (unintentionally I'm sure) to GRRM that a number of the actors and even producers are calling this season "off book", how the don't have "the source material to work from", when a sizable portion is unmistakably adapted from A  Feast For Crows! Just 'cause they reached the end of A Dance With Dragons with Jon & Dany, they're acting like they're making it all up based on GRRM's instructions and their own (less good) ideas, when it's surely at 60% of the season was storylines from AFFC they circled back around for. Particularly annoying with Nikolaj Coster-Waldau saying in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter "[the main difference in approaching the story and character] this season is that first of all we're off completely off book" or words to that effect... Errr, Riverrun, The Blackfish, Edmure, the baby being threatened to be slung into Riverrun..... AFFC!

I usually defend the show against book purists tooth & nail, but hot daaeyum I'm find this annoying! Anyone else?

My humblest apologies for ranting anyhooo...

Thanks

Jaemi xxx

Its not even close to 60%

[Rumy Stark]

I would also say 60% is a huge overestimation, but I think really the problem is just that many of the actors haven't read the books and many show watchers haven't either, so it's somewhat logical for people to assume that there are 5 books and 6 seasons and therefore the 6 season has entirely surpassed the books. And, as you pointed out, for some storylines it has. For others, as you mentioned, it also has not, though even in those cases it felt more like loose book inspiration than actually using the books for the season.

Just overall I think there's a lot of confusion, since the writers have been divorcing themselves from the books for a couple seasons so certain characters (like Sansa) just don't even have their book plots anymore while others are still loosely the same and others are still working their way through the book plot. 

Honestly I've seen way more people doing the, "Calm down, even though Winds of Winter hasn't come out this season is still based on the books for the most part" than the other way around. I do think at some point we need to figure out how to reconcile the book and show universes and to be able to look at them entirely separately without downplaying their relationship to each other. There's just.... a lot there. And it's quite complex. 

[aFeastForDragons]

Most of the actors haven't read the books so they are just echoing what they're told or hear in the media.

[Jaemi Greysnow]

Thinking about it, I'm probably basing some of my 60% figure on the sample chapters out there, but yeah that is the issue, the actors haven't read the books, it's a tricky situation, and it particularly niggled at me today when reading the aforementioned Jaime interview, and him saying it when a huge chunk of his story this season was straight from AFFC. It's not that big a deal, was just interested to see what the general consensus was/is on here about it. From this point onwards I think we certainly can all agree, unless TWOW comes out soon, next season really will be "off book"

[Desert Fox]

I do wonder how much of this season was still on book (not counting stuff from TWOW).

• Jon 0%. Some argue he is sorta putting together the coalition Stannis did is ADWD, but I don't really think so. My guess is that Jon in TWOW doesn't have many allies because they were all defeated already with Stannis. Either way, Jon's S6 story isn't Stannis's ADWD story
• Dany 0%.
• Ayra near 0%.
• KL 0%.
• Sansa 0%.
• Jamie 50% of his scenes but more like 80% of his actual story.
• Sam is sort of doing the same thing as AFFC, but don't seem to adapted really any of it. The only substantive scenes are totally new. But it seems like S7 might have some of sams last chapter in AFFC
• Ironborn 75% or more. Theon and Yara are taking Victarions place, but they seem to have surpassed it a little bit with the actual alliance.
• Davos 0%
• Brienne 0%
• Tyrion 0%

I'd say like 15% at best was on book.

[grufolo]

26 minutes ago, Desert Fox said:

I do wonder how much of this season was still on book (not counting stuff from TWOW).

• Dany 0%.

I'd say like 15% at best was on book.

I don't agree, on Dany's part. She does things but ultimately the battle of Mereen is fought at the season finale, while GRRM told a few times that the first things he's about to do in tWoW is to resolve the two impending battles (Winterfell and Mereen), which, in our case, occur at episode 9. If, as it appears reasonable, the battles of Winterfell on screen, will be unified in the book, this means that the only adreal vances are in the storyline in KL, and Braavos.

 

[Desert Fox]

16 minutes ago, grufolo said:

I don't agree, on Dany's part. She does things but ultimately the battle of Mereen is fought at the season finale, while GRRM told a few times that the first things he's about to do in tWoW is to resolve the two impending battles (Winterfell and Mereen), which, in our case, occur at episode 9. If, as it appears reasonable, the battles of Winterfell on screen, will be unified in the book, this means that the only adreal vances are in the storyline in KL, and Braavos.

 

Sorry, I meant on already published book. I expect this season covered a lot of TWOW.

I think a lot of Dany and Jon is stuff from TWOW or similar. Though some of it is made up. I'm pretty sure Battle of Mereen will be long done by the time Dany gets back, but maybe not. I think the Battle of Ice will be different from the bastardbowl--if the bastard bowl even happens. As lame as it is, I think the battle of ice was replaced with 20 good men and then Stannis's last stand in S5.

 

[Jaemi Greysnow]

I feel like we're getting bogged down with the percentage amount; although I will say I think the first half of Arya's season was definitely from ADWD (or maybe AFFC, I've been rereading the merged book), but yeah it might be less than 60 but I feel it's way more than 15; we had two episodes around the Riverlands with Brother Ray(the least Westerosi sounding name I've ever heard)'s adaptation of Elder Brother etc and the Riverrun stuff. Sam travelling, with the added going home, which I don't think will happen at all in the books personally, so what little we got of him was mainly adapting his AFFC Brienne mooching down to Riverrun I also feel is an extreeeeemely loosely adapted continuation of her mooching about from AFFC, plus possibly a bit of whatever Stoneheart has her doing in TWOW...Anyway I'm now getting bogged down in; I just think it was disingenuous of them to make the party line "we've moved past the books and apart from the major plot points this is all original D&D material" when for me , cos of the divergences that really hit overdrive last season, I don't feel this season was that much more or less "off book" than season 5. Whereas, as I possibly already said, they really have now burned through all the available book material.. I love GoT so I hope I'm not misrepresenting myself here. I'm kind of a book snob, but I'm usually able to let stuff go and enjoy it for what it is, after the initial annoyance at stuff like Manderly's changes etc (so disappointed there was no conspiracy at ALL?! I've noticed D&D like to make the characters constantly the sole architect of their situations, Dany thinks to marry Hizdahr on her own, Jon & Sansa get Winterfell back on their own(ish), Cersei basically elects the High Sparrow.. But I digress.

So I take it, basically, people aren't that annoyed by what my original point was, then...

[Stannis is the man....nis]

I'm more annoyed by the fact that they did go back to AFFC because many of their bad decisions from last year and this year have been defended on the grounds of "they are rushing toward the end".

[Jaemi Greysnow]

Agreed. Burning Shireen would've made so much more sense had they featured the Ironborn plot  in s04 like they should have, instead of Mel just not mentioning she was only 3-4 and hoping Stannis and ourselves would just let it go.

[Jaemi Greysnow]

Maybe they had a meeting with GRRM where he warned them as the "tale has grown in the telling" he's making Euron et al more important to the main plot, as opposed to merely ne'er-do-wells and miscreants around the periphery or the story so they had to jump back and start Euron's thread. I also get the feeling that initially they were planning on Jaime's trip to Dorne to actually replace his trip to the Riverlands, since they had jettisoned Stoneheart and left Blackfish and Edmure offscreen for two long, but then as they screwed the pooch they've had to turn it around. It might've made some sense if they'd given Ellaria Sand some of Arianne and Jaime some of Arys Oakheart, which could have equally achieved the ultimate schism betwixt Jaime & Cersei that we'd all been wondering when it was going to actually happen.. I'm sure I'm not saying anything that's not been said before.. They have just seemingly developed the kind of narrative shortsightedness that average shows that just write season by season, which is ironic since I just read a D&D interview conducted after the finale, where they reiterated that it is one long story with "a beginning, a middle and an end" so I don't understand how they're making these mistakes, when surely they MUST know the material inside and out...?!